


Paranormal Breadtivity

by Pyroxenite



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Thievery, tikki bein' sneakki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-12-09 07:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20990801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyroxenite/pseuds/Pyroxenite
Summary: Sabine Cheng thinks the bakery might be haunted.





	1. The First Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is now the 12th day of Halloween, so let's get into the spirit of things with a spooky scary story about phantoms, pastries, and pretty kitties!

Sabine didn’t believe in ghosts.

Not really.

Maybe as a young girl she’d shy away from abandoned buildings and derelict graveyards, but it was natural to be wary of things like that. It didn’t mean they were haunted.

There was no good reason to be wary of her own bakery, though, she thought as she stared up at the ceiling, nestled deep in bed. A gentle glow from the clock at her bedside read the time:

03:21.

She didn’t know what woke her up, but it was quiet, now. Her husband, Tom, snored softly next to her, still deep in sleep. They would have to wake up in a few hours, to start preparing for the day.

This was the third night in a row. The last two, Sabine couldn’t get back to sleep in time, and she was starting to feel the exhaustion behind her eyes. Maybe tonight—

A thump, just down the hall. Not quite a footstep, it echoed again downstairs. Startled, Sabine bolted upright in bed.

“Tom,” she said, tugging at his arm. “Tom!”

“Hmmm-ha?” Tom mumbled, blinking blearily at their clock. “Issat time to get up already-y-y—" His words were lost in a yawn.

“There’s someone in the bakery,” she whispered. “I heard them.”

That got his attention. He snapped awake, tossing aside the blanket and standing up in one fluid motion.

For a brief moment, they both waited with bated breath, but the noise didn’t come again. “Maybe it was Marinette,” Tom suggested, easing himself back against the bed, but not quite getting in.

“At three in the morning?”

“You know how teenagers are.”

“Well, yes, but…” Sabine wasn’t entirely convinced, but her frantic heartbeat slowed, barely. “I should go check it out.”

“Okay, dear,” Tom said, rubbing at his eyes. “Would you like me to come with you?”

Sabine smiled, and shook her head. “Go back to sleep,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

Tom obliged, and was snoring in no time. Sabine slipped out of bed and down the hall. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

A quick peek upstairs. Marinette’s trapdoor was closed, and her room was silent. As normal.

Downstairs to the bakery. No one was there, and Sabine breathed a bit easier. The door was still locked tight, nothing was broken, and everything was in place.

A smattering of crumbs dusted the counter, adding weight to Tom’s theory. Sabine was sure she had cleaned the kitchen before bed, and it was inconsiderate to leave a mess for someone else to find, but her daughter sneaking pastries at night was definitely preferable to a break in.

She grabbed a towel and wiped up the crumbs, feeling much better overall. She would have to have a talk with Marinette about waking up her poor, tired parents in the middle of the night, and a more mischievous part of her had the urge to go have that talk right now, but her more reasonable half won out, and Sabine made her way back to bed, a fond smile ghosting her lips as she passed Marinette’s trapdoor.

Back in her room, Sabine slipped back under the covers, dislodging her husband, who had stolen her pillow.

“You were right, love,” she whispered, and Tom, only half awake, slipped his arm around her and pulled her close.

“I’m glad,” he whispered back, and hugged her a little tighter as the two of them drifted back to sleep.


	2. The Second Night

The next morning, Sabine was fussing over a steaming pot of hot chocolate when Marinette stumbled downstairs, still bundled up in thick pajamas and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Morning, mama,” she yawned, and with her enthusiastic reach for a hug, knocked over an entire bowl of oranges.

Setting the pot back down on the stove, Sabine stepped deftly between the floor fruit to return the hug and hold her daughter steady. “Good morning, dear,” she laughed. “Looks like someone had a late night?”

“Not really,” Marinette said, as they both bent down to pick up oranges. “I went to bed pretty early.”

Sabine paused. “What about your late night snack? You woke me up, you know.”

“What?” Marinette looked bemused as she adjusted the now refilled orange bowl. “I wasn’t up late.”

“There were crumbs on the bakery counter last night,” she explained. “Wasn’t that you?”

“It wasn’t me, mama.” Marinette seemed unconcerned, so Sabine decided to drop it for the time being.

It was definitely odd, though. She briefly entertained the idea of the whole mess being a dream, and resolved to get to sleep earlier tonight. She was just trying to recall anything strange she might’ve eaten that evening when her abandoned pot of cocoa boiled over, and hot milk splattered against the floor.

“Mama!”

“Oh! Oh dear—”

In the excitement of the moment, the mysterious crumbs and rogue thumps were forgotten, and she went peacefully about her day.

Later that night, Sabine tossed and turned in bed. She couldn’t seem to get comfortable, and Tom’s normally endearing snores were setting her nerves on edge.

She glanced over at the clock. 2:45.

Only three minutes since the last time she checked.

Suddenly, irrationally irritated, she swung her feet out of bed with a small huff. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well go find something productive to do. Taking care not to wake her husband, she snuck out of their bedroom and made her way downstairs, to the bakery.

A sheet of small, plain cookies, wrapped haphazardly in plastic, sat on one of the counters. They were waiting to be iced, meant to be displayed in the shop window, oranges and reds to herald in the fall season.

Perfect.

Sabine gathered everything she needed, the simple act of looking for ingredients already clearing her head.

Two thick, puffy bags of sugar. A cool, slick jug of milk. A tiny jar of almond extract.

She used some sugar to melt into a syrup, and gently poured milk into the rest. Unwilling to use a mixer and risk waking the whole house, she vigorously stirred the syrup and extract into her icing.

Her arms ached and her eyes grew heavy. Elated with exhaustion, she picked up the pace, trying to wear herself out so she could sneak in some sleep before it was time to actually start the day.

The icing was very, very thick. It needed a bit more milk, and Sabine reached for the jug without looking, relaxed fingers probing the counter behind her. Finding nothing, she turned her head to check.

It wasn’t there.

The mixing bowl clinked out of her free hand, rattling against the counter. She didn’t care.

There hadn’t been any footsteps, no rustling of clothing or slamming of doors. Tired as she was, her ears still worked fine. The paranoid part of her brain urged her to quickly check the perimeter, but the doors and windows were closed and unbroken. Outside was dark and still—no cars, no pedestrians. Not that she could see, anyway.

A shadow darted at the edge of her vision, and she whirled around.

Nothing.

She tried to speak, to call out, but all she could summon was a passive squeak. Having found she couldn’t find her voice, she took her whisk and brandished it like a weapon, holding it out in front of her with a confidence she didn’t really feel.

A flash of an indiscernible color in the corner of her eye, and she twisted around so fast she almost slammed into the row of cabinets at her knees. The only thing behind her was the forgotten bowl of icing, but now, she could just barely see a small indentation at the surface, like someone had stuck their finger inside.

That was enough of whatever this was for one night. Methodically, so she didn’t give herself time to panic, Sabine poured the icing into a new container and put it in the bakery fridge. On the way, she found the missing jug of milk on another counter, just a bit emptier than she had last seen it.

Enough. Sabine climbed the stairs, not looking back, trying to put it all out of her mind.

There was no way this was Marinette, and she didn’t want to think about what it could be.

Reaching her room, she crawled back into bed, and tried very, very hard to go to sleep, but her mind was still racing.

It probably wasn’t an akuma. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had a troublesome akuma in the kitchen, but they didn’t usually last this long, and nothing bad had really happened. She’d just been…spooked.

It might have been rats, or other vermin, but that didn’t explain the milk jug. Maybe very large rats?

It couldn’t have been ghosts. She didn’t believe in ghosts.

Maybe she was just tired.

Regardless, she needed to find out what was going on, and she was starting to have an idea of how to do it. With the tiniest sprinkling of guilt, she shook Tom’s shoulder.

“Tom?”

Her husband stirred. “Hmm?”

“…Do we have a video camera?”


	3. The Third Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I'm very sorry for the delays! I actually started this chapter several weeks ago, but I kept getting distracted. Also, I have no sense of time. I can't believe it's already November!

The scene was set perfectly.

Before Sabine went to bed that night, the kitchen counters were clean and cleared of everything but a small plate of fresh, gooey chocolate chip cookies. All doors were carefully closed and, in some cases, locked. On top of the fridge, a small camera sat inconspicuously, poised to capture the entire room at once in video and sound. It was left rolling the entire night, ready to expose whatever had developed a taste for stealing their food.

It wasn’t the fanciest of cameras; it was roughed up and dirty, and the video was grainy, but whatever microphone it had was so sharp it could pick up Tom’s snores from the other half of the house. Nothing and no one could so much as sneeze in this house without her knowing about it.

That morning, the plate was empty and crumbs dotted the floor. While Tom was setting up shop for the day, Sabine pored over the video footage, watching carefully for any sign of movement, occasionally slowing it down to normal speed to check for strange noises. Once, there was something like Marinette’s trapdoor slamming shut, but it was so faint that Sabine wasn’t entirely sure she’d actually heard it.

After that, the house was quiet and still for hours.

It wasn’t until the video’s timestamp read 4:26 that something happened. The trapdoor-sound came again, and not a minute later, the plate of cookies moved just slightly.

Sabine gasped, watching in a growing mix of confusion and horror as one of the cookies lifted itself off the plate and gradually disappeared, chunk by tiny chunk. Then a second cookie, and a third. Finally, the last cookie floated into the air, but rather than disappearing like the others, it took flight and zipped away, up the stairs and out of sight.

This definitely wasn’t rats.

Nothing else happened for the rest of the video, and Sabine was somewhat relieved to finally turn the camera off and set it with shaking hands next to the emptied cookie plate.

Something crunched beneath the camera. It was crumbs, more crumbs.

She decided it was irritating, is what it was. This was another mess she had to clean up, and she busied herself being annoyed with sweeping cookie from the floor, completely unsure and rather afraid of allowing herself to feel anything else.

Familiar thumps down the stairs told her Marinette was finally awake. Stressed as she was, Sabine was quite ready to share her discovery.

“Do you need some help with that?” Marinette’s question was punctuated with a yawn as she reached around to give a good-morning hug.

“No, dear,” she said, leaning back into the hug as she swept up the last of the mess. “I’ve got this—could you sit for a minute? I have something to show you.”

Marinette looked concerned, but she took her place at the dinner table. She seemed to notice the video camera, and eyed it suspiciously.

Setting the broom back in its corner, Sabine gathered up the camera and sat down next to her daughter, feeling jittery with apprehension. She turned it on—having ended, the video was back to the beginning—and started to fast forward through the tape.

“…Are you okay, mama?” Marinette said softly, placing a hand on her arm.

“Yes, I’m fine, I—Oh! Here!”

“Wha—?”

“Shush! Just look!”

There was the trapdoor sound, and again, the floating cookies. Sabine peeked over at Marinette, and was startled to see she looked terribly pale. The hand on her arm was clammy was sweat, and Marinette seemed like she might be sick.

“Sweetie, are _you_ okay?”

Marinette nodded, a bit hesitantly. She seemed like she wanted to speak, but couldn’t. Stranger, still, she wouldn’t meet her eyes, her gaze darting from the plate to the stairs to the doors and back to the plate. Sabine was starting to regret showing her the video.

“I don’t know what it is,” she began, taking Marinette’s small hand in her own, “but it doesn’t seem dangerous, alright? Just messy.” She finished with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

To her delight, some color returned to Marinette’s face, and she seemed to breathe a little easier. “You don’t…?” She murmured, and looked back at the footage, and at the cookie disappearing up the stairs. A bit of a laugh, if slightly forced, escaped her mouth. “Sorry, mama,” she said. “I’ve always been a little spooked by _ghosts_.”

Sabine didn’t want to admit it, but maybe Marinette did have a point here. Ruling out an uncharacteristically passive akuma, what else could it be? Of course, ghosts didn’t exist and Sabine would acknowledge no such thing, but what if?

“Actually, mama, I’m not feeling all that well,” Marinette broke into her thoughts. “I’m going to go back upstairs…” She said, and hopped off her chair, inching her way around the table. “…To lie down. So I can, um, feel better.” She made it to the stairs, her hand on the railing, an apologetic smile on her face. “Don’t worry,” she said quickly, as Sabine opened her mouth to ask if she needed anything. “I’ll be fine, and I’ll be…! Right back!”

“Marinette—!”

Marinette had already bolted up the stairs and was well out of the range of more fussing, but if she was that lively then she would be fine.

The kitchen door swung open, and Tom popped his already well-floured head in. “Did I hear yelling?” He asked, still stirring the enormous bowl of dough in his arms.

Sabine sighed, and shook her head. “We just got a little…excited, over the video I recorded last night. It scared poor Marinette half to death!” She fiddled with the camera buttons, rewinding it just a tad, to where the trouble started.

Tom’s normally amiable demeanor turned serious, and he set down his bowl to join her at the table. “What happened?”

“…Ghosts.” It came out in a whisper. Sabine couldn’t believe she’d actually said it.

“Ghosts,” Tom repeated, his face blank, but Sabine could hear the confusion in his voice. “You mean, you filmed an actual ghost? One of those hauntings?”

Wordlessly, Sabine played the footage back for him. It didn’t startle her so much the third time around, but it was still very strange to see cookies disappear into thin air.

The clip of interest ended, and Sabine turned the camera off. Tom sat back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair and dusting his surroundings with flour. He had a strange expression on his face, but it wasn’t fearful.

“Ghosts,” he concluded, after an uncomfortable period of silence.

“What else could it be?”

“I didn’t know ghosts liked cookies.”

“I didn’t think ghosts liked anything.”

A pause, and Tom gave her an odd look. “Did you leave those cookies out on purpose?

“Yes.”

Another silence. Sabine was reevaluating what she thought she knew about her life, and from the look in his eyes, Tom was doing the same. She told him, then, about what had happened the other night, and how _something_ kept waking her up in the wee hours of morning.

“I’m glad it’s ghosts,” Tom said, after considering this.

“Are you really?”

“Yes, I am. I was afraid we’d had a break in, when you told me to watch this video. Besides,” he said, a smirk creeping into his voice. “Can you blame them? Your cookies are the best in Paris!”

Sabine laughed and swatted at him as he stole a kiss on her cheek. The tension melted from her shoulders, and her husband wrapped his huge, strong arms around her to pull her close.

“I can handle a few ghosts for you, love,” he whispered. “If they cause any more trouble for you or Marinette, I’ll kick them right out!”

The thought made her smile, and being held tight like this drove away her apprehension. She could try to get more footage, maybe even turn it into something fun.

“Of course, dear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's incredible how many crumbs are in a cookie. Once I stuck one down my apron pocket(what are those giant pockets for if not sneaking cookies?) and it took a month before I got the last bits of it out. I've definitely learned my lesson there.


End file.
